#BeAdaptable #Snoopy #CharlieBrown #Peanuts
Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog, had many alter egos.
He was, at times, the Easter Beagle, Joe Cool, World War I Flying Ace or Joe Grunge.
Being adaptable is just one of the leadership lessons in the book,”You’re A Leader, Charlie Brown,” which puts Charles Schulz’s words into lessons, with the help of Carla Curtsinger and Brian Tracy.
Other leadership qualities the book touts are perseverance, presence, communication, listening, inspiration, teamwork, loyalty, acceptance, and celebration.
All these attributes are important, and were displayed by the various characters in the Peanuts gang. Fans of the comic strip can undoubtedly match the trait with a character.
Adaptability is perhaps a key attribute in today’s world. Have you, or anyone you know, been hired for a specific job, and, sometime into the tenure, have seen that job change – perhaps multiple times?
Just when you get comfortable being pigeon-holed into a role, it changes. With companies, in today’s world, that undoubtedly happens often.
Sometimes, the result of rapid change means someone, perhaps you, loses a job.
When change comes, you have a choice. You can complain about what has happened to you, and long for the good old days (weren’t you just complaining about those days yesterday?). Or, you can adapt.
Adapting, mind you, is more than just living with what is. It is quickly buying in – even embracing – the new circumstance. Those that do can consider themselves leaders.
Those leaders find new ways to do things. They figure out not just how to make the best of – even thrive in – a situation different from what they were used to. They learn how to make themselves, and their company, successful.
Many of you are probably now, or have recently, undergone a change in your situation, be it professional or personal. How have you dealt with that? Does your adaptation make you proud of yourself? Did what you thought would be a bad outcome turn out well? Did you make it turn out well?
Adaptability is one thing that we all must learn, because, seemingly with each passing day, something is thrown at us that we didn’t expect. Consider residents of the Southeast U.S. and Texas, dealing with recent hurricanes, for the ultimate lessons in adaptability.
If you’ve gone through, or are going through, a situation that requires significant adjustment to your life or career, and are looking for a vehicle that could turn things to your favor, such vehicles are out there for those open to looking for them. To check out one of the best, message me.
You don’t have to have multiple personalities, or multiple identities, like Snoopy, to adapt to change.
But it is up to you to make the new situation the best it can be. It may not always be easy, and it may require different adjustments with each change, but you can’t expect others to make the adjustments for you.
With flexibility comes success. If your situation is good now, and you don’t believe it will ever change, presume that it will. You may not know when, or see the change coming, but today’s world demands change and flexibility.
We are all creative. When change comes, it will be up to us how we adjust, lest we be punished for not adjusting.
Peter
Tag Archives: change
THE MYSTERY OF PARADOX
#paradox #mystery #change
Want to jump past the competition?
Want to be a better you, so you can better help others?
Consider the mystery of paradox, which includes these five statements:
• We know how to work less and accomplish more
• We know how to go more slowly, and move more quickly.
• We know how to sell more with fewer salespeople and efforts.
• We know how to get customers to chase us.
• We know how to communicate more effectively, often without saying a word.
Authors Mac Anderson and John J. Murphy discussed this mystery, among other things, in their book, “Leapfrogging the Competition: 9 Proven Ways to Unleash Change and Innovation.”
Regardless of what you do, working hard can be a waste of time, if you are working hard at the wrong things. Effective people indentify the tasks they should spend the most time on, and focus on those tasks.
Working hard on “busy work” won’t get you where you want to go.
Sometimes it’s best, and more cost-effective, to have others handle some tasks while you focus on what will make you successful.
How do you determine that? What tasks, if you concentrate strictly on them, will put the most money in your pocket? Which tasks will help make you grow more as a person? As a leader, do you lead by empowering others, and helping them succeed? Or, are you a “boss,” who gives orders for others to carry out?
Are you stuck in old ways, that don’t seem to work anymore? Do you tell people, “we’ve always done it that way,” or “we’ve never done it that way?” In the long run, sameness is the fast track to mediocrity, Anderson and Murphy write.
“While we don’t have a choice about whether change happens, we do have a choice about how we react to it,” the authors write. “The choice really boils down to this – either we manage change, or it manages us.”
If you need your life to change, but don’t quite know how to go about it, be open to looking at different solutions. There are many ways out there to improve one’s chances of success, that may require one to look outside his comfort zone. To learn about one of the best, message me.
Perhaps you are a person whose life needs to change, but you don’t know it. If so, take stock of where you are and ask whether you are where you want to be. Chances are, you’ll discover that you are not where you want to be.
Anderson and Murphy offer this checklist for success:
• Determine which behaviors will drive your values forward, and communicate those to all your employees (or all concerned, if you have no employees).
• Make your core values the guideposts that shape your decisions.
• Take every opportunity to reinforce those core values every day.
• Lead by example, especially when the going gets tough.
Success awaits anyone who wants it, is willing to look for it and willing to do what he or she needs to do to achieve it.
Peter
CHANGE COMES WHETHER WE ARE READY … OR NOT: PART 3
“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”
Voltaire, philosopher
#TryDifferent #change #reorganization
If change comes to your workplace, and you are expected to be part of it, how do you embrace it?
Karl G. Schoemer discussed this in his book, “Try Different, Not Harder: 15 Rules for Mastering Change.”
So let’s set up the scenario: Your company is reorganizing. You will be placed in a job which you never expected to do. Your boss tells you to figure it out. You are scared to death. What do you do?
Schoemer says, ”Step on the gas. Don’t just improve the process, look critically to see whether the process is necessary anymore. … Don’t study it to death. Forget perfect. You need to be fast and good enough.”
In other words, if your organization is changing, EVERYONE will be working on the fly. Many people will be new in their roles. Many won’t have a clue where to begin, yet they MUST begin.
Complacency is worse than fear. Don’t be afraid to ask questions like, “how did they do this before and why was it done that way?” Then, if that question is answered, find a better way to do it.
Just as jobs become different from what you may have been originally hired for, processes become outdated or obsolete. You embrace change not by sticking with the old, but by finding the new.
When looking for the new, you may find opportunity. Opportunity comes to those who don’t necessarily look for it, but to those who look for other things that can make the work easier, cheaper and better. To say it another way, as Schoemer writes: when you put yourself out there and embrace change, solutions can find you. If you hide behind what was, the solutions remain hidden from you.
Suppose you are one of those whose company has changed, and you are not a part of it? You have to embrace your own change, rather than complain about what you have lost.
You have to put yourself out there. Look for your own solutions. They may come from people and places you would never expect. If you keep looking, eventually you will find what you need and what you want.
If you need some help looking for such solutions, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may find something you never thought you would look for. But that’s part of embracing change – finding the unexpected and realizing what you have found.
“Opportunities today are so widespread that the challenge has become sorting through them,” Schoemer writes.
To find the opportunities to sort through, one must look. Sometimes, it may be uncomfortable to look. Perhaps it’s even difficult to do something you’ve never done before. Still, you will know that you can do what you need to do, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it’s not perfect, even if it’s not ideal.
So become flexible like putty, rather than hard like concrete. Be curious and ask questions, rather than presume you have all the answers. Be open to learning new things, rather than closed by only what you know.
Embrace change, rather than hug the past. Though the latter seems more comfortable and cozy, the former will propel you to success.
Peter
CHANGE COMES WHETHER WE ARE READY …OR NOT: PART 2
“The only sense that is common in the long run is the sense of change – and we all instinctively avoid it.”
Author E.B. White
#TryDifferent #change #reorganization
We avoid things that hurt. We sometimes avoid things that take effort. We often avoid things we don’t know.
Change can be all of those things. One of the 15 rules that Karl G. Schoemer points out in his book on change is its title: “Try Different, Not Harder.”
In discussing this, Schoemer cites this common complaint during times of change in the workplace: “I can’t work any harder. I’m already working harder than I ever have.” As he points out, we sometimes are more comfortable redoubling our efforts than changing them. Thus, the instinctive response: “The way we’ve been doing it has always been good enough, so more of the same should be better.”
In the modern world, organizations have to change. Workers can be part of the change, or excluded from it through layoffs and other downsizing. If you are part of the change, your role in the company could, and probably will, change.
If you are new to a company, and they are hiring you for a certain job, know this: what they are hiring you for today may not be what you will ultimately be doing a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now.
Job situations change – some might say deteriorate – over time. Perhaps you have been in a job which, after a few years, had no resemblance to what you were hired to do. Or, your job now INCLUDES what you were hired to do, plus something else. You may feel you are doing the work two or more people should be doing.
In the past, unions, or even companies themselves, protected employees by keeping them in jobs that are no longer needed, relevant or could be done by machines or other technology.
In today’s world, companies can’t afford that. So here’s a rule of thumb: presume your job will change, even deteriorate, over time. You won’t be able to do much about it. By the same logic, promotional and expansion opportunities will be fewer, and farther between.
What to do?
As Schoemer and others advocate, learn new skills. Take advantage of additional training your company, or other institutions, may offer.
Don’t presume that working harder at what you’re doing will get you farther. It could get you out the door.
A better option might be finding another source of income, just in case you get shown the door before you want to be. For one of the best of many such options, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
Most of all, don’t complain that your employer just doesn’t see how valuable you are. No matter your age, or how good you are at what you do, you are expendable. You are an expense to your employer. If you see that what you are doing is becoming less important to the business as a whole, or you – God forbid – are having trouble filling up your day at work, a red flag should go up in your head. If you don’t have a Plan B, you should get one quickly. Remember: if you see instances in which your employer might be able to live without you, your employer will soon see them, if he or she hasn’t already.
In short: work with change. Evolve with the job situation. Get better at different. Become fluent, and fluid, with change.
Peter
CHANGE COMES WHETHER WE ARE READY … OR NOT: PART 1
#TryDifferent #change #reorganization
If you don’t like change, as some leadership experts will argue, too bad! It’s going to come whether you want it or not.
If you embrace change, you will more likely be successful, those same experts may argue.
What if change comes, and you are excluded? Can you embrace that?
In his book, “Try Different, Not Harder,” Karl G. Schoemer offers 15 rules for mastering change. He says the information and technology revolution is redefining our work – what it is, how and where it’s done, who does it and how long it takes.
He also says we are also reshaping our business organizations – from how they function to what they expect of employees and what employees can expect in return.
His point: these changes create a fertile environment for even more change, and opportunities. Whether these opportunities are seized, or missed, depends entirely on you, he says.
Many of us have been through change at work. As employees, our natural reaction to change is to resist. What was comfortable yesterday is taken away today, and that can upset us. Eventually, though, we get over it and adapt, presuming we are still around to do so.
Some workplace changes leave us completely out. We are laid off, offered incentives to leave etc. If you’ve been laid off, hopefully the company will give you enough to tide you over for a time. If not, there’s not a blessed thing you can do about it – or so you think.
Sometimes, disappointment can morph into rousing success, if you don’t let the disappoint take over your life.
If you are offered an incentive package to leave a job, more often than not, there will be little time to think about it and you will not be given enough information to make a totally informed decision.
That is, no one will tell you your future with the company if you stay – unless, of course, the company tells you they won’t accept your resignation. That rarely happens. Chances are, if are determined to be eligible to take the package, the company tacitly is encouraging you to take it.
Also, most people who take such packages ultimately have few regrets. They may struggle at the beginning, but most people land in a decent place. In recent years, though, that has been the case less often. So, if it happens to you, you’ll be between a rock and a hard place, at least in your mind.
If you are between two undesirable things, remember there is always a way to crawl out.
Schoemer, like many leadership experts, recommends that we embrace change at our place of employment. It’s tough to embrace change when you are not included in it. So what to do?
Embrace yourself. Embrace your ability to ensure you will be successful. A job loss is a temporary disappointment. Don’t let it consume you. View your departure as your employer’s loss, not yours.
If you are confident in yourself to succeed, despite what might be thrown at you, and are looking for something that will enable success, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may find something that will not only bring your self-confidence to the fore, but also enable you save money.
Perhaps, using Schoemer’s title, “Trying Different,” may have nothing to do with your current employment. Perhaps you are still employed, and trying harder to do what you’ve always done. In this milieu, that may not cut it. You may have to escape to “Try Different.”
Sometimes, those unexpected exits from your employer can be openings for something so much better.
Peter
HOW DOES CHANGE GO DOWN WHERE YOU WORK?
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African proverb
#change #workplaces #innovation
The workplace can be cruel.
It can also be awesome.
Are you the type that is eager to go to work? Perhaps you are the type that isn’t eager for the commute, or some other extraneous issues, but are happy to be at work once you arrive.
Perhaps you are there for the paycheck only. Paychecks are very nice, but you spend lots of your life earning it, so it would be best to find something good, other than a paycheck, at your workplace.
Your attitude toward work may be a reflection of the management where you work. Is the culture one of collaboration, competition or coercion?
Bob Nelson, author of “1501 Ways to Reward Employees” has followed up that work with “Companies Don’t Succeed, People Do.”
The book is a primer on how to create a work atmosphere at which people feel valued, have power, autonomy and are allowed – actually encouraged — to innovate.
Does this describe where you work? Some employers are old school. They believe a successful organization in one in which employees compete with each other, fear failure and feel almost enslaved by what is probably a measly paycheck.
The newer organizations, the ones Nelson praises, have cultures that think outside that old-school box. They offer employees creative time to find better ways to do things. In turn, the employees work well with each other, find teams in which members have complementary skills and have departments that work together, not compete for credit or blame.
Management in these new organizations are constantly looking for ways to reward collaborative behavior, instead of finding ways to punish.
In organizations like the ones described in Nelson’s book, there are very few levels of employees. Those who work there seldom need permission to do something beneficial. Those who work there have a common goal, understand that goal and do what THEY feel they need to do to best carry out the goal.
In these organizations, change is easier to accomplish because the employees have a clear understanding of the need for change, and do what they must to make it happen.
In old-school organizations, change is difficult because there are too many layers of employees. Some of those employees get hurt as a result of the change, making it even more difficult.
If you work in an old-school organization, and need a way to get out — probably before you are asked to go – visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You’ll see a fresh organization in which people are rewarded for helping others succeed.
Some organizations and some managers are resistant to change. They fear empowering employees because it will hurt THEM – not the employees. For those organizations, when change has to come, there is anguish, anxiousness and real fear of loss. Good people often pay a steep price for that change.
If you believe change is coming where you work, and you fear it will not be for the better for you, take charge. Find that Plan B before you have to. There are many good ones out there, for those who want more control in their lives.
If you work in one of those flat, dynamic organizations, be thankful. However, change could still come up to bite you, so have your Plan B ready to go.
Peter
CHANGE CAN BE HARD! EMBRACE IT!
#change #gettingunstuck #changehappensquickly
A few decades ago, change came slowly to the world.
It evolved over time. Chances are, people could ride out the evolution without having to worry much about the change when it came. They believed they would be long gone from it.
Today, change happens quickly. Just when you think you will be set for life – or for at least as long as you want to be – boom! Your very secure job is gone! Life as you knew it will never be again.
But with frequent and sudden change comes opportunity, as well as hardship.
George and Sedena Cappannelli discuss all of this in their book, “Getting Unstuck: 10 Simple Secrets to Embracing Change and Celebrating Your Life.”
The authors talk about how many of us were taught by our parents to look for security, to gravitate to what was “safe,” and to pay little or no attention to those who would encourage us to take risks.
You see, our parents lived in a world in which change evolved slowly. The tried and true was constant. You earned a living, instead of fulfilling your dreams.
Today, change is frequent and quick. One must adapt constantly. It’s more challenging for us, yet we have more opportunity to fulfill our dreams, rather than to just make a living.
How do we fulfill our dreams when our supposed security blanket is pulled from underneath us?
First, we need to presume that there is no such thing as a security blanket. We can’t, for example, look at a job, or even a career, as something long-lasting. We live in a world now in which change is so constant, tomorrow there could be a new way to do what you do.
So, learn skills and get experience. Keep thinking of new ways to use your skills, whether in a particular job, or on your own. Remember, always, that the day will come – and you don’t know when – in which you could be literally on your own. When that comes, it won’t matter how good you were at your job, or how valuable you believed you were to your company.
The Cappannellis also talk about how security blankets inhibit dreams. Did your (pick one: parents, teachers, preachers) ever tell you to stop dreaming and get real? Well, you got “real” and suddenly, you’re alone. Reality has slapped you in the face. With that lesson learned, go ahead and dream again.
How do you make dreams come true when, you believe, you have lost your method of making a living? There are many ways out there not only to dream, but to make dreams come true. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You’ll see how other people, just like you and your friends, got real, got slapped and made their dreams come true.
OK, perhaps you have no reason to throw away what you have. Great. Keep it. Just don’t presume it will never go away, or that you can have it for as long as you want it.
When you are not doing your “real” thing, what are you thinking about? If you think about a life in paradise, or a life of service – free from the need to make a living – it’s OK to dream. You can get that life. Just have your Plan B in place so that when reality slaps, you can smile.
Peter
CHANGE ISN’T ALWAYS WHAT YOU WANT
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
Today, more than ever, change is constant.
Sometimes we see it coming. Often, we don’t. Regardless, we wonder what we could have done about it, presuming the change isn’t good.
Some things are beyond one’s control. Some things are totally within one’s control.
If change is beyond one’s control, how one responds to it is totally within one’s control.
One certainly can’t control the weather, and, as this is written, weather is severe in some parts of the United States. We can control how we prepare for and respond to severe weather.
Have you been through some change lately? If so, how are you dealing with it? Are you trying to reconstruct the past, or are you figuring out your place in the future?
Are you expecting change? What are you expecting? How do you feel about it? Is it going to help or hurt you? Most importantly, what are you doing now to prepare a response?
Are you expecting no change at all for the foreseeable future? Don’t be blindsided. Change IS coming. You may not know what the change will be. Therefore, you have to think of the worst change that could befall you, and prepare your response. What if you lose that job you think you are so secure in? What if your spouse walks out on you? What if there is an unexpected death close to you? What if YOU die?
All of these things will require a response. The good news: you can prepare a response in all these scenarios. At the time of the change, emotions will run high. That’s no time to think about how to respond. We don’t want things like these to happen, but they could – and they might. There are many prudent actions to take BEFORE they happen. Have a plan. Write it down. Have appropriate financial safeguards in place. Have appropriate insurance – yes, that goes for health insurance, even if you are young. Insurance is an investment, even if you don’t use it right away. Penalties are throwing money away.
Remember, in regard to your job, company ownership can change. You can get a really bad manager. Companies also reorganize a lot more frequently than in the past, because of changes in the marketplace, technology etc. Even if you have a great job, and are good at it, any one or more of the above changes could kill your career. How do you prepare to unexpectedly leave your job?
You can be a good saver. That certainly will help. You can be a very careful spender. Remember that money you don’t spend stays with you. However, remember the difference between being “cheap” and being frugal. (See health insurance vs. penalty above).
There are ways outside of a job to generate income. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It may be something you’d never thought of, but getting into it while you have an income – and before you really need it – could pay handsome dividends if the worst happens. Heck, it could pay big dividends even if the worst doesn’t happen.
Harkening back to Gandhi, you may not like the world as it is. You may love the world as it is, but don’t expect it to stay that way. If it does, that’s your good fortune, since you can’t control “the world.” In either situation, there are things you can do to make the world a better place, and secure your place in the future.
Don’t let circumstances beat you. Prepare for the worst and expect the best. You will be so much better for it.
Peter
SMALL TOWNS, BIG CITIES, GROWING AS PEOPLE
Many of us grow up in small towns, rural areas or neighborhoods of larger cities and grow fond of the area, the people etc.
But, when we enter adulthood, perhaps going off to college, it hits us: we may not realize our full potential if we settle down back home. Settle may be the operative word here.
New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed this phenomenon. He wondered whether, in the meritocracy vs. government race, it would be so bad if meritocracy won.
In a nutshell, a young person leaves home and goes off to college. He realizes his limited potential if he moved back home, where only a small percentage of the folks living there had college degrees. He decides to move to a place where, as Brooks quotes, up to 50% of the people have college degrees, i.e. San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, Washington or the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
The folks back home may call him snooty for not wanting to move home. But he has a degree from an elite university, i.e. Stanford or an Ivy League school. He got good enough grades back home to get into the prestigious school, did well once he got there and now HAS to reside where people are more like the new him.
WAITING TO HEAR THOSE WORDS
A friend relayed the story of his childhood. He grew up on a farm in Georgia. When he wasn’t in school, he was working on the farm. He enjoyed some aspects of farming, but it was backbreaking work.
Finally, in his teen years, he told his father that he did not want to do this the rest of his life.
His father, it turned out, had been waiting years to hear those words.
Farming taught him hard work. But it also taught him how NOT to spend his life. There was so much more out there.
He stayed in Georgia, but had a superb sales career.
So what’s wrong with growing up in a small town, or rural area, or a specific neighborhood of a city? Nothing at all. But the kids grow up in an age of equality – everyone is the same and should be treated as such. When they move on to bigger and better things, they have to learn to go for distinction. They must be more accomplished, more cutting edge, to thrive in the new world, as Brooks points out.
This distinction even occurs in higher education. Many universities look to hire professors from the elite schools. Even the graduates they produce are not good enough, Brooks says.
The world demands innovation, collaboration, global thinking. Where one has grown up often thrives on a collective sameness and routine. There is security in sameness. There is tradition in sameness. There is equality in sameness. But for those who want to thrive in the world, change must be the operative word.
There is good news for those who may live in the sameness of “home,” wherever that is. There are many ways for you to prosper without leaving home. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Like the young college grad who needs to move out of his comfort zone into the bigger world, those left at home may have to leap outside their comfort zones. And, it can be done without leaving home.
The moral here is that sameness and equality may not improve the world as it should. Those seeking to see their great potential thrive have to depart their world of sameness and venture out into the world of competition, and, yes, discomfort.
It isn’t to say that they shouldn’t help the folks back home. But, they don’t have to settle for the sameness of their parents’ world. The more people who jump from their comfort zones to find their full potential, the better the world will be. Striving to be equal has far worse consequences than striving to be better.
Peter